News of the shooting at T.I’s concert in New York City rocked the Hip Hop world last week, just a day before the community celebrated the release of Gucci Mane from prison. 4 people were injured and 1 man lost his life in the crossfire. Shortly after, rapper Troy Ave was arrested after being caught on tape at the shooting, drawing his gun and firing it.
The shooting very quickly fired up a dialogue about the history of violence at Rap concerts- some took to social media to say that the music inherently promotes violence. Live Nation announced this morning that 6 shows scheduled to take place between Irving Plaza and Gramercy Theatre would be postponed or potentially canceled. Joey Bada$$ took to Twitter first to announce that the NYPD canceled his Thursday night show but he quickly deleted the Tweet. Vince Staples, YG, Mac Miller and two bands, Black Pistol and Appetite For Destruction, were all affected by the cancellations.
A rep from the venues made a statement this morning about the situation and said “In light of last week’s tragic event, we are acting with an overabundance of caution and coordinating a going forward strategy with the New York Police Department that may also include a curfew”. An NYPD officer told The Fader this morning that the police department was in no way involved with Live Nation’s decision to cancel the shows. The NYPD doesn’t have the best relationship with the Rap and Hip Hop community and has been known to orchestrate cancellations or crackdowns of shows- they most recently canceled ATL rapper 21 Savage’s show in Manhattan. The NYPD commissioner made a rather disgusting and thinly veiled prejudiced statement in an interview concerning the T.I concert shooting:
Bratton’s statement on the shooting at the TI concert is so vile pic.twitter.com/CTEl9oRrJd
— Kia Makarechi (@Kia_Mak) May 26, 2016
No doubt these cancellations and the shootings have reheated a long held conversation about Hip Hop and Rap and gun violence and the racism involved with inherently associating the two together. Live Nation has yet to make a statement about whether the shows will be rescheduled.